On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:29:01 +0300, "Amir E. Aharoni" <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote: Now it may sound like a joke, but the opening of Sakha Wikipedia had been delayed some two years ago because the Language Committee did not believe that the Incubator pages have actually been written in Sakha. Now this is one of the most dynamic Turkic language projects, and I am proud to be a regular editor of this Wiki. Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: +1 Add to that the fact that a portion of their discussion archives is deliberately hidden from the public as if they are debating state security issues. So even after a decision is taken, we only have a patchy view of the process that led to that decision. -- Best Regards, Muhammad Yahia _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Erm ... huh? 1) If you're interested in helping, and have experience/knowledge of languages, then get involved with the committee. 2) They're getting things achieved - they're fostering the development of new language projects, making decisions, getting the projects started, and doing this in a very effective way. Compare this with the ineffectual procedure for starting an entirely new project in any language, which hasn't gotten anywhere in the last 3(?) years.

Klingon doesn't count, as that was before their time). I'm not aware of any.

as possible of the discussion leading up to a new project should be public, and i can't see a reason for secrecy. Apart from that, though, I don't understand these (somewhat bitchy) comments at all... Mike On 25 Aug 2010, at 21:21, Mohamed Ibrahim wrote: security for _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen keeps his contributions to the discussions secret

 An'n 26.08.2010 00:41, hett David Gerard schreven: > On 25 August 2010 23:34, Marcus Buck<me(a)marcusbuck.org>  wrote:

>> Gerard Meijssen keeps his contributions to >> the discussions secret

> Is this true? If so, what is the rationale? Described like that, that > sounds ridiculous and unacceptable.

Well, the latest archive (June 2009) is here: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Archives/2009-06> The other committee members' posts are shown, but Gerard's are all replaced with: <this user has not agreed to public archival.> Somewhere on Meta there is a discussion years ago (I cannot recall whether I asked him or whether it was somebody else who asked) where Gerard explains his decision. I am unable to find it (perhaps it was removed from the public archives? ;-) ). But if I remember correctly his answer was not that helpful. It was something along the lines of "I have my reasons, but I cannot disclose them in public".

On 25 August 2010 23:34, Marcus Buck &lt;me(a)marcusbuck.org&gt; wrote: Is this true? If so, what is the rationale? Described like that, that sounds ridiculous and unacceptable. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

The backlash had the potential of stopping all new Wikipedias in any language. To prevent this from happening, the language committee and its policy were created. This policy was accepted by the board of trustees. With the flow of new Wikipedias now down to a trickle, the new Wikipedias prove that the policy functions. We do not have people clamouring for the end of new projects.

The language committee is not a talking shop, we implement an agreed policy.

On 26 August 2010 04:54, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: be This is in no way whatsoever an explanation or justification. What sort of things are *you* saying that you don't want anyone else to hear? If not personal information that should be kept confidential, then what sort of things are you actually saying that will professionally damage you or someone else? No, your deliberations should *not* be secret unless there is an overwhelmingly good reason. You are not providing one. Then I'm sure you can explain it in terms that make it obviously clear why this is. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

What has a limited remit to do with transparency? The things you do in your limited remit are extremely relevant to some groups. Our mailing lists should be public whenever possible so people have the chance to object to wrong or bad decisions, to give additional input, to understand decisions etc. That's the basic idea behind transparency. Internal-l was created as an internal counterpart to foundation-l on purpose for discussions that cannot be done in public (e.g. for legal reasons). I hope and assume internal-l sticks to this purpose and all topics that don't require privacy are discussed on public lists.

I don't know the reasons why the chapter and cultural lists are internal, I have not even ever heard about cultural list (what is it?), I assume there is a reason. If there is no specific reason they should be open and transparent.

There are some cases where confidentiality is necessary. We routinely ask external experts for their evaluation of the test project content before project approval, as Yaroslav mentioned early in this discussion. These external persons are sometimes in situations where speaking negatively about the content may be seen as an attack on nationalist or culturalist interests, and put them at risk of professional or personal reprisal. These persons are offered confidentiality to protect them and to ensure we get their honest opinion.

However, most content can be safely made public and is published to the public archives if the email authors agree. These have not been updated recently, but only because I have not had time to do so; they should be updated in the coming months, now that someone has joined with public archival as one of their goals.

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:14 AM, David Gerard&lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Hello David, There are some cases where confidentiality is necessary. We routinely ask external experts for their evaluation of the test project content before project approval, as Yaroslav mentioned early in this discussion. These external persons are sometimes in situations where speaking negatively about the content may be seen as an attack on nationalist or culturalist interests, and put them at risk of professional or personal reprisal. These persons are offered confidentiality to protect them and to ensure we get their honest opinion.

If this gives you the impression that there is not that much to discuss, you are completely correct.

A tricky bit appears to be when expertise is offered on the basis that it is confidential, due to fear of attacks on the expert in question from aggrieved nationalists. It's not clear how to work around that one.

Hoi, Let us have a sense of history here. When the language committee started, there were no linguists or other experts members on the committee. We were really happy when we got someone who is part of the standard bodies that are relevant to what we do. It meant that we had a way to assess what the likelihood was for requests to the standard bodies. The only problem was that for professional reasons it is not possible to publish the point of views expressed publicly. As this may affect the employability, this is not a trivial matter and confidentiality is the only way got relevant and significant contributions. As a consequence, the mailing list for the language committee became confidential. At a later date, some members were not happy with a confidential list and wanted to make *their* contributions public. I opposed this because it is not that hard to deduce what someone said by the answers from others. As a consequence I keep my contributions private to the members of the committee. At a later date we started to seek expert opinion about the contributions in the incubator to ensure that contributions were in the language that goes with the ISO-639-3 code. The comments of these experts are in some cases best kept private. We seek assurances for ourselves so that we can honestly inform the WMF board that in our opinion a project in a new language can start. The policy allows for only one Wikipedia per language and, requests by people that seek to force one orthography or one script do not find acceptance in the policy and by the committee. At that we deliberately keep such deliberations outside of the WMF LC and leave it to the standard bodies to define what makes a specific language. If this gives you the impression that there is not that much to discuss, you are completely correct. Thanks, GerardM

2) Eurocentrism.

another is originally from Europe,

should not be tolerated within an organization such as ours which pretends to have an international scope.

I guess if 75% of the members were from the US nobody would ever complain.

An'n 26.08.2010 14:20, hett Gerard Meijssen schreven: If it's boring there is no reason to keep it secret. So no argument for your position. qualifications. As not You try to make it appear like an attack on a single person. It's not about removing any person from the committee, we just want them to be transparent and stand to their words publicly. And it's also not a single person, it's you and one more committee member. I don't like speaking in mysteries. The second, so far unnamed member whose posts are secret is User:Karen. She seems to be solely active on the mailing list and has zero edits in the wiki. Some info about her is in the edit history of her user page on Meta. I have no specific reason to doubt that she is a competent contributor to the committee's discussions, but on the other hand there seems to be not a single word from her mouth publicly documented on the committee's home wiki Meta and not a single bit of information available about her qualifications or the reasons and circumstances she became a member of the committee. I have no idea why you put the word 'opportunistic' in your comment. According to Wikipedia "opportunism" is: "[..] the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles." "Making decisions that affect the public (like the creation of new Wikimedia projects) public and transparent" is a principle (a very important principle). That's the exact opposite of opportunism. there Any decision of the committee should be based on facts and the language proposal policy defines which facts are to be considered. So if you abstain from personal judgements in your decisions there is just no reason that could cause external criticism. And if it should be the case that you and Karen make statements in the discussions (the others do not, as I can check in the archives) that would make mandatory the application of double talk to be acceptable when uttered in public, I'd find that worrying. often What has a limited remit to do with transparency? The things you do in your limited remit are extremely relevant to some groups. Our mailing lists should be public whenever possible so people have the chance to object to wrong or bad decisions, to give additional input, to understand decisions etc. That's the basic idea behind transparency. Internal-l was created as an internal counterpart to foundation-l on purpose for discussions that cannot be done in public (e.g. for legal reasons). I hope and assume internal-l sticks to this purpose and all topics that don't require privacy are discussed on public lists. I don't know the reasons why the chapter and cultural lists are internal, I have not even ever heard about cultural list (what is it?), I assume there is a reason. If there is no specific reason they should be open and transparent. Marcus Buck User:Slomox _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:52 AM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com I think this has already been answered. Quoting Marcus below: You try to make it appear like an attack on a single person. It's not about removing any person from the committee, we just want them to be transparent and stand to their words publicly. And it's also not a single person, it's you and one more committee member. -- Best Regards, Muhammad Yahia _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 26 August 2010 19:13, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The language committee is behaving in a blatantly closed manner. You are not even pretending to offer an excuse for this. This is not adequate behaviour. Are you really unable to justify why you don't want your messages to be read? - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I hope you realize there are two different ppl in that quote above (it's mis-attributing it to me, and it seems like I am agreeing with myself :) ). I personally dont have any current issues with arz.wp and I hope the discussion does not go into that direction, because really my points were not about a certain project.

Erm ... huh? 1) If you're interested in helping, and have experience/knowledge of languages, then get involved with the committee.

2) They're getting things achieved - they're fostering the development of new language projects, making decisions, getting the projects started, and doing this in a very effective way. Compare this with the ineffectual procedure for starting an entirely new project in any language, which hasn't gotten anywhere in the last 3(?) years.

3) Please point to _recent_ examples where they've made a bad choice (i.e. Klingon doesn't count, as that was before their time). I'm not aware of any.

I agree that it's not good that they have a hidden discussion forum; as much as possible of the discussion leading up to a new project should be public, and i can't see a reason for secrecy. Apart from that, though, I don't understand these (somewhat bitchy) comments at all...

I think it has been proven many times over now that the Language Committee works in mysterious ways with little or no community oversight or input, essentially a self-appointed committee of "experts", mostly from similar linguistic backgrounds, handing down judgements about the rest of the world's languages from their overwhelmingly European ivory tower. It seems we as a community of people who care deeply about the future of potential new languages and the success of existing language versions within our Wikimedia community have no choice but to watch from the sidelines as they do what they please. -m.

to the private list is copied to the public archives, unless the poster asks to be excluded. Discussions are summarized, to ensure that censored messages don't reduce transparency.

It's true that the work of the Language Community